Thursday, July 15, 2010

Soap Nuts Giveaway!

When I was contacted by Maggie's Pure Land Products about trying free samples of Soap Nuts Laundry Soap, I didn't really understand what I was signing up for. The nice person who contacted me tried to explain that this eco-friendly alternative to traditional laundry soap involved washing my clothes with dried fruit. But maybe I wasn't really paying attention. Then two generous packages of these little round dried nuts came in the mail:

Stuff the sack with 2 to 5 nuts (depending on whether or not you have an HE washer), tie it up, and toss it in the machine with your dirty skivvies. About a half an hour later, you've got clean underoos.

Afraid that these strange dried fruits would stain my clothes, I first tested the soap nuts on dirty sheets. The sheets came out of the wash clean and fresh-smelling. The Soap Nuts company also sent me a bottle of their laundry liquid (made from soap nut extract, lavendar, lemongrass, and tea tree oils), so I tested it on my delicates with perfect results. I went back to the whole nuts for my tough jeans and towels, all of which came out of the wash clean as hell (and I let my jeans get pretty funky before I finally wash them).

According to Maggie's Pure Land Products, soap nuts are the dried fruit of the Chinese soapbery tree, which is related to the lychee and rambutan. They're harvested in Indian and Indonesian jungles. Apparently, the locals there have been using these nuts as soap for ages. Here's a photo Maggie's sent me of soap nuts drying in the sun:

Maggie's Pure Land wants to give away a sample of soap nuts to three lucky readers! Leave a comment about your favorite article of clothing, and I'll use a random number generator to choose the three winners next Wednesday (July 21st). Tweet about the giveaway with a link back to my blog and then leave an additional comment for an extra entry. You can also mention the contest (with a link) on Facebook and leave another comment to let me know you did. If you have a blog, link back to this contest on your blog and leave me yet another comment.

That's an opportunity for four entries per person! But please, please, please leave an email address if you don't have a blog so I have a way to contact you. The winners will be able to choose between an 8-load liquid sample and a 5-load raw soap nut sample. Good luck!

UPDATE: A few commenters have expressed concerns about the mass marketing of soap nuts and how it might affect the prices of these natural cleansers for the indigenous people who've used them for years. I don't have enough information to speak to that point exactly, but I did find this link to information about the company's sustainable forest harvest (and paying living wages to workers who gather nuts) on their webpage. From a quick Google search, I can see that Maggie's isn't the only company selling soap nuts, and I'm not sure how their practices compare to the other companies. But I've emailed the company for more information. Until then, comment on! And good luck!

92 comments:

I've never left a comment to anything on a blog, but I have to comment on this. Have you ever thought of that because these nuts become so popular in the eco-friendly-community, that the request of them is raising in the countries where they are used for ages and that the prices in these countries are rising because of the request. So the poor people in these countries often cannot afford the nuts any longer due the request of western civilisation. It may be more eco-friendly, but it's not really fair towards these people. Sorry if I made any mistakes, I'm no native speaker.

Anonymous, that's an excellent point. But I'm curious, is the supply too limited to meet the demand that the local price would rise? Or would higher demand invigorate the market and production? I'm asking because I don't know how it works. Do you have any sources I could check out?

Those points may be true or it may be that the harvesting and exporting of soapnuts creates jobs for villagers in areas where jobs are scarce, improving lives for the locals, etc. As of now I would assume the demand for soapnuts are not that high and it seems to be a highly prevalent and mass producing tree.

I would love to try these soapnuts. My favorite article(s) of clothing are my pajamas!

I always do wonder about the local impact of going in and popularizing things from the jungle, even when it comes to bananas. (I have a friend who works at Chiquita and it's crazy the stuff they do.) But I doubt these soap nuts would ever be as popular as Tide, and I'd love to try them.

The one pair of shorts that I bought on sale at a place that didn't let you try things on, so when I got them home and discovered they were too big, I tore them apart and resewed them. Not exactly perfectly, but well enough that they were the only pair of shorts I wore last summer (and fall, when I was traveling).

My favorite article of clothing is this shirt made of a bedsheet which goes to my calves made by my wife.

I've long wanted to try thse. They're pretty expesnive as laundry detergent goes and I had been making my own (3 cents a load) before my homemade liquid nearly deep-sixed my HE washer.So now I'm back to using 20 cents a load HE store brand...

I mgiht be wrong. I just checked prices and they seem to ahve fallen to about 9 cents a load if bought in bulk. Interesting.

Me again.As I am from Germany, I have unfortunately only links that are related to german websites. I'll post them anyway if somebody is interested. http://www.taz.de/1/leben/alltag/artikel/1/waschnuesse-mangel-durch-bio-boom/They say, that because of the eco-boom in Europe the poeople who live in India for example cannot afford any longer the Nuts, so they take normal washing agents which pollute the environment, but are less expensive than the environmental friendly nuts. You have to think of that most of Indias poor people wash their clothes directly in the rivers around, so the washing agents go directly in the water and pollutes it. It may be, that the nuts sounds good to all of us (which implies to me, that it may be that the demand IS rising quick), but is it really eco-friendly?!

My favorite clothing item- a ripped, kelly green, ultra-soft, large men's t shirt that a friend left at my apartment- every time I wear it (to sleep only!) I think about the amazing summer I shared with this friend and others- it just oozes happiness.

I have a faded worn denim miniskirt that I have been wearing twice a week or more this summer- it is currently my go-to item when I have to dress in a hurry - and I can wear it hot or cold by adding a tank or a hoodie-

My favorite article of clothing is my white skirt- and it's a huge pain to keep clean. I always have to spot-treat it, and I'm super-paranoid when I drink coffee in it... I wonder if the soap nuts would keep it bright and clean?

I'm always looking for new environmentally friendly products. Just recently switched to Meyers dishwasher detergent and all organic body wash, shampoo, etc. So, I guess laundry detergent is the next step!

This is the first I've heard of soap nuts. It's really intriguing and I'd like to give it a try. I use to hand wash my clothes with castille soap but never something so natural as this. I, too, wear my jeans at least 3 times before washing them and I'd like to give the soap nuts a go. Thanks Vegan Crunk!!!!

Hmm... my favorite article of clothing... well, at the moment it's an adorably retro black and white polka-dotted strapless dress I picked up at the thrift store yesterday - I can't wait for an opportunity to wear it!

I have this OLD blue DC skate hoodie that I've had for over 12 years and I LOVE this hoodie. It doesn't fit, the zipper is broken, it's totally ratty and has holes everywhere but every time I go through my clothes to down size it ALWAYS ends up in the keep pile!

Just questioning if eBay enables you to market [url=http://www.ticketchoice.com.au]concert tickets[/url] on the internet? Do you know if there are any restrictions depending on what country you are in?

My parents have just known as me and asked if i could "get rid" of their two tickets to some concert as they wont have the ability to make it because of one more family event.

Apart from asking close friends etc, i thought ebay would be a fantastic place to market them.

But whats ebay's policy on promoting tickets? Ive heard alot about it around the news but ive forgotten what happened.

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm an 11-year vegan, 21-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.